Successful On-page SEO for WordPress Websites

This post focuses on ways to successfully implement On-page SEO for WordPress websites and the guidelines that we follow. While we strive to provide information that is as comprehensive as possible, this guide covers pieces of the overall puzzle when it comes to SEO for WordPress websites. We recommend referencing this guide periodically, as things rapidly change in this space.

Focuses Keyword Phrase

Focused Keyword Phrases (“keywords”) are two or more words typed as a search query, to find desirable resources on the web. Website owners can target and use keywords by placing them strategically throughout their website. There are many no-cost tools and methods to determine the best keywords to use. There may be some cases where a paid solution is needed, but we always recommend starting with no-cost solutions. If someone tries to sell you expensive SEO tools right from the jump, this should send up red flags.

Keyword Density

Keyword Phrase Density is a factor, but it’s often given more attention than it should. In the past, the thought (or action) was to place keywords all throughout a website, whether it made sense or added any value to the content. This practice, known as keyword-stuffing, is highly frowned upon and will have a negative impact on a website’s ranking. Calculating the ideal density is not an exact science. It’s best to let the keywords appear naturally as you compose your website copy. With that said, as you are coming up with your website content, your keywords should always be in kept in mind. In the end, the goal should be to produce amazing content that visitors will find useful. We recommend the Yoast SEO plugin, which will provide guidance when it comes to Keyword Density. If you want to take a deeper dive into calculating your density, simply do a Google search for “keyword density analyzer”.

Post/Page Titles & URL

Let’s look the current page as an example. The title of this page is “Successful On-Page SEO for WordPress Websites” and it contains the Focused Keyword Phrase for this page. which is “on-page seo for wordpress websites”.

You want the title of your post/page to include your Focused Keyword Phrase, as close to the beginning of the title as possible, without completely sacrificing the readability for your visitors. For the URL (slug), you want to keep it as short as possible, while containing your Focused Keyword Phrase and maintaining as much readability as makes sense.

The best practice format for title tags is one of the following:

Primary Keyword – Secondary Keywords | Brand

Brand Name | Primary Keyword – Secondary Keywords

Headings / Heading Tags

Use heading tags (H1, H2, H3…) in the correct sequence, starting from the top. After a post/page is constructed, we use Tota11yto verify a proper heading structure…prior to publishing. We use CoShedule’s Headline Analyzer to find headlines that have a better ranking potential. Simply plug your headline idea into the analyzer and tweak from there. Shoot for a score of 70 or better.

Try to add Focused Keyword Phrase to the H1 or H2 heading as close to the beginning of the heading as possible. It is important to look at how your theme handles the assignment of the H1 tag and how you choose to display/not display your page titles. WordPress automatically assigns the H1 tag to post/page titles. You want to make sure that you’re not missing the H1 tag altogether or that you’re assigning the H1 tag twice (title and heading).

Problem: Missing H1 tags or multiple H1 tags.

Why It’s an Issue: Without an H1 tag, search engines will have a more difficult time determining the content structure.

Root Cause: Poorly coded WordPress theme or user configuration.

Discovery: Use the Tota11y browser applet or an app such as Screaming Frog.

Resolution Options: Change to a new WordPress theme, override the theme’s code via a child theme or edit pages and posts with the proper heading structure.

Meta Description

Meta titles and descriptions give Google and other search engines an idea of what the page is about and what they should expect to see as they digest the content. These data points appear in search engines results pages.

Problem: Missing meta, multiple instances of meta, same meta across the entire website, too short or overly long meta.

Why It’s an Issue: Makes it difficult for search engines to understand the content’s subject matter.

Root Cause: Lack of SEO plugin or incorrect plugin settings.

Way to Discover: Use Google Search Console’s HTML Improvements section or an application such as Screaming Frog or BeamUsUp.

Resolution Options: Install and properly configure the Yoast SEO plugin, which will guide you in fixing current issues and potential future issues.

SEO Friendly URLs

SEO friendly URLs help search engines understand a website’s architecture and the structure of the content. URLs should be structured (when possible) to be clean, short, memorable and shareable.

Problem: Set to numbers and/or funky characters, and a lack of hierarchy.

Why It’s an Issue: Makes it difficult for search engines to understand the hierarchy and nature of the content.

Root Cause: Incorrect settings in WordPress.

Way to Discover: Review website in a browser, use the Screaming Frog app to crawl the website.

Resolution Options: Set permalinks to Post name in WordPress (Settings > Permalinks), use the Yoast SEO plugin to further and optimize URLs.

Images

Image File Name: The image file name should be your Focused Keyword Phrase, with each word in the phrase separated by a hyphen. Given that the Focused Keyword Phrase of this page is “on-page-seo-for-wordpress-websites”, the primary image for the post/page should have a file name of “on-page-seo-for-wordpress-websites.jpg”. If you have multiple images on your post/page, you’ll want to name those files using variations of your keyword. If you are SEO optimizing for your brand, entirely or partially, your brand should also be included in the file name. Your brand will appear at or near the beginning or end of the file name.

Image Title: The image title doesn’t have an impact on keyword rankings. That said, image titles are displayed when visitors hover over an image, so it does improve the user experience. So, for an image on this page, we could use something like “WP Turned UP | On-Page SEO for WordPress Websites”.

Image Alt Text: We want to include a written sentence as if we were describing the image to someone who is visually impaired. This sentence can include your keyword(s) as long as they are related to the surrounding content and not spammy.

Image Caption: This is on-screen text that accompanies an image. Captions have no direct value for SEO, but they can enhance the overall user experience, as some visitors choose to read content based on image captions. Not every image needs a caption, so deciding to use one should be made on a case by case basis.

Surrounding Text: For theimage-surrounding text, the paragraph just before the image should essentially be a full description of what the image illustrates and should be between 3 to 5 sentences. The paragraph after the image is bonus material regarding the image or is an afterthought and should also be between 3 to 5 sentences.

Image Optimization: Uploaded image files should be the appropriate dimensions for their specific application and should be optimized to reduce their overall size.

Website Links

Internal Links: Within every page or post, we try to include at least 2-3 links to other content on our website. Depending on the length of the content, more than 5 links would be recommended. This helps people navigate within a website, helps establish a hierarchy of information and helps spread link juice throughout a website.

External Links: Within every page or post, we try to include at least 1-2 links to high domain authority websites. It can be very challenging to obtain these types of links, especially when a website is just starting out and is working to build up its reputation. If you are fortunate enough to obtain high-quality, external links, you will want to apply the Nofollow rule so that you’re not transferring link juice to the external source. However, if the external source is a website that you own, the Nofollow rule becomes far less important and may actually be desirable.

Backlinks: We currently use the following plugins to further optimize any websites we manage. Please check back periodically, as this list does and will change. Backlinks are still very important when it comes to WordPress SEO. When a high domain authority site links to your website, this has a positive impact on your website’s rankings. Generally, a good sign is seeing that the number of referring domains linking to you is on an upward trend.

Robots.txt

This file is created to instruct robots (from search engines) how to crawl and index website content.

Way to Discover: One of the easiest ways to discover duplicate content is to enter “site:yourdomain[.dom]” enter Chrome’s address bar. Then, browse through all the results ensuring that there are no URL variations as mentioned previously above.

Resolution Options: 301 Redirect duplicated content to the correct/original content, set a preferred domain within Google Search Console and no-index the following taxonomies within the Yoast SEO plugin: Categories, Tags and Author archives.

Mobile Responsiveness

Google now sees more search traffic from mobile devices than it does for desktop computers. It is becoming more and more focused on mobile, while also adjusting the algorithms to handle mobile differently than desktop.

Problem: A website that doesn’t adapt to mobile devices or themes that display poorly on mobile devices.

Malware

The term “malware” covers all sorts of malicious software designed to harm a computer, website, or network. While there are lots of different kinds of malware, the common ones include viruses, worms, spyware, or trojan horses.

The index and actual counts are roughly equivalent – this is the ideal scenario; the search engines are successfully crawling and indexing your site’s pages.

The index count is significantly smaller than the actual count – this scenario indicates that the search engines are not indexing many of your site’s pages. Hopefully, you already identified the source of this problem while investigating the site’s accessibility. If not, you might need to check if the site’s being penalized by the search engines (more on this in a moment).

The index count is significantly larger than the actual count – this scenario usually suggests that your site is serving duplicate content (e.g., pages accessible through multiple entry points, “appreciably similar” content on distinct pages, etc.).

SSL

Google prefers sites that are trusted and certified. Implementing SSL is another way to get in Google’s good graces. We use a combination of Cloudflare’s FREE tier and Let’s Encrypt’s Free certificates.

On-page SEO Checklist

Edit the permalink, inserting your keyword as close to the beginning as possible, keeping the permalink as short as possible while maintaining readability.

Using the Yoast SEO or SEOPress section of your page/post, edit the Title, placing your keyword as close to the beginning as possible and finish with your brand/company name.

Using the Yoast SEO or SEOPress section of your page/post, edit the Meta Description, placing your keyword as close to the beginning as possible and finish with your brand/company name. (Note: If you’re using Yoast SEO, including your keyword in the Meta Description also bolds that keyword within the snippet preview. Tip: End your meta description with text that leaves the visitor curious to read more (e.g. “Get your FREE…”).

Include the keyword in the primary heading (H1).

Include any additional keywords in the subsequent headings (H2-H6), keeping in mind that synonyms of keywords are a great for use here.

Test post/page heading structure with Tota11y, making sure the headings (H1-H6) flow in the correct order.

Write content that is at least 1000 words in length.

The keyword should be within the first 100 words of your copy.

Link to internal content where possible, pointing to other relevant content on the site (up to 5 links).

Link to external content where possible, pointing to other relevant content on trusted/authoritative websites (up to 2 links).

Referring to the images section of this post, insert images that add value to the content and help break up long sections of text.

Using the Yoast SEO or SEOPress section of your page/post, attempt to fix as many recommendations that are provided.